HTC S743 announced for U.S. market

A couple days before CES 2009, HTC reveals the U.S. availability of the HTC S743 Windows Mobile smartphone.

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Bonnie Cha

Jan. 6, 2009 9:06 a.m. PT

While everyone might be buzzing about the T-Mobile G2 rumors, HTC is plugging on with its commitment to Windows Mobile devices and announced on Tuesday that it will release the HTC S743 smartphone for the U.S. market in Q1 2009.

A variant of the HTC S740, which has been available in Europe and Asia for a few months now, the S743 features a 12-button keypad on front and a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard for all those messaging fanatics. In its closed state, the S743 sports a compact design that takes its inspiration from the HTC Touch Diamond. Unlike the Touch series, however, the S743 has a more traditional Windows Mobile user interface rather than the HTC TouchFlo interface and has a 2.4-inch QVGA nontouch display.

As you might gather from the lack of a touch screen, the smartphone runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Edition with Microsoft Exchange support. The S743 also has integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and a microSD expansion slot. The quad-band GSM handset supports the 850/1900MHz HSDPA bands, meaning you'll get the 3.5G speeds with an AT&T SIM but not a T-Mobile one, since T-Mobile's 3G network runs on the 1700/2100MHz bands.

The HTC S743 will be sold as an unlocked phone and not with a specific carrier. HTC didn't reveal details about pricing but said it would be available through a number of retailers, including Dell.com and CDW.com.